Oh, my. You cannot imagine my mother’s joy when, along about 1957, we came back to the United States to find…ohhh gosh! FROZEN FOODS!
No mere packages of frozen veggies: no indeed, but whole meals — meat, veggies, starches — neatly packaged in tinfoil pans, ready for you to warm up in the oven and toss in front of the Brat, ready to eat.
The Brat, conveniently enough, had never seen any such marvels before, out in horrible Saudi Arabia, and so had no idea that frozen slop is still slop. 😀
No idea at-tall.
***
Just tossed a fistful of frozen spinach and another fistful of frozen French fries on the grill. 😀
Nooo, we did NOT have microwave ovens, back in the Good Ole’ Days.
Nooo, living in a mid-century high-rise San Francisco apartment, we did NOT have a gas grill.
My mother wouldn’t have known what to do with either of those. What she knew was to stick the tinfoil pan, fresh out of the freezer, into the oven. Let it overheat the pan’s contents. Haul it out. And dump it on a plate in front of the brat.
The brat, having no more clue than her mother did back in the Day, thought that was just real cool.
😀
Make no mistake: my mother could cook.
Oh my, could that woman cook!
It was just that…well…she’d druther not. And especially she’d druther not clean up the mess after cooking a full-on family meal.
😀
Her excellent grandson can cook.
Oh my, can that young man cook!
And I do believe that’s one of several reasons she would have been thrilled to know him. If only she’d lived another 20 years(+). How extraordinary she would have thought he is!
Because, as a practical matter, that’s what he is. Even today, in our extraordinary times.